CHAPTER 2

CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM BUDGET

Published in Monograph No 88, November 2003

Criminal Justice in Review 2001 / 2002


Ted Leggett, Antoinette Louw
Martin Schönteich and Makubetse Sekhonyane


The share of the national budget claimed by the criminal justice system (i.e. the Departments of Safety and Security, Justice and Constitutional Development, and Correctional Services) has remained fairly constant in recent years, following a dramatic increase at the end of the apartheid era. This increase was due in part to the reassignment of responsibilities from the military to the police. Since 1994, however, the criminal justice system has consistently garnered between 9% and 11% of gross national state expenditure (Figure 4).


Figure 4: Proportion of national expenditure devoted to the criminal justice system, 1990/91 - 2002/03

Source: National Treasury
  1. 1 While every effort was made to provide information for the complete period under review (i.e. January 2001 to December 2002), when it comes to budget years, emphasis is given to the 2002/03 budget year. That is, the period 1 April 2002 to 31 March 2003. While this includes part of 2003, which is not within the ambit of this monograph, it does cover the bulk of 2002. The 2001/02 budget year would cover the first quarter of 2002 only, which would be dated for a monograph published in early 2003.
The relative share of the pie enjoyed by the three components of the criminal justice system has not changed significantly over the last two budget years (2001/02 and 2002/03).1 In the 2002/03 budget year R30.4 billion was allocated to the three core criminal justice departments.1 The largest proportion was allocated to the Department of Safety and Security with 63% of the criminal justice system’s budget, followed by 23% for the Department of Correctional Services, and 14% for the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (Figure 5).2 This distribution between the three criminal justice components is similar to that of other Commonwealth countries. For example, it is nearly identical to that found in Australia.3


Figure 5: 2002/03 expenditure allocation for criminal justice departments (Rbn)
Source: National Treasury, 2002